Earth Eats: Real Food, Green Living

In the fall of 2024 Kayte had the chance to talk with Nicole Keith, Food Sovereignty Coordinator of the Nottawasepi Huron Band of the Potawatomi (also known as NHBP) and Kevin Harris, Culture Specialist with the NHBP.They visited Bloomington in the fall of 2024 to share a film about wild river rice with The First Nations Educational and Cultural Center on the IU campus, in partnership with the IU Media School. The film is called Mnomen | Wild Rice "From the River Banks to the Table.”The interview that appeared in the last episode of our Eats Wild series was cut for time, here is an extended version.

This week on the show, we focus on tools of the trade. Muddy Fork Bakery upgraded their mixer and it turned out to be a game changer. Hot sauce production is made easier with a hand crank food mill. And if you ever accidentally purchase the wrong kind of rice in Tokyo, never fear, they have coin operated kiosks to help you out.

”Acorns are, I mean, they're everywhere. They are incredibly abundant and they've been a really important food source for humans in essentially every region of the planet that had oak trees–which is almost every temperate zone on the entire globe."But we don't do much of acorn eating anymore as people and in communities in most places.”Graphic Novelist Mel Gilman made an instructional zine about eating acorns, and this week on Earth Eats Eats Wild, they talk with us about this abundant food source, and why comics can be a great medium for learning about foraging.And, we process some acorns of our own into flour for baking projects.

“And a man on his way to work hops twice to reach, at last, his fig which he smiles at and calls ‘baby.’ ‘c’mere baby,’ he says, and blows a kiss to the tree.”This week on the show, in honor of WFIU’s 75th anniversary, we revisit favorite stories from the Earth Eats archive. We share two pieces celebrating fig trees, including a poem by Ross Gay. We explore connections between food, fine art and memory with artist Mollie Douthit. Plus, a recipe for making pita bread using spelt flour.

“Speaking directly to Black women and wanting Black women to know that their bodies are not the problem. The way that our bodies are treated and problematized and pathologized, we’re often taught that it’s our fault, that it’s our problem to fix or we just need to love our bodies out of societal oppression.” This week on the show a conversation with dietitian and author Jessica Wilson about her book, It’s Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s BodiesShe’s challenging us to rethink the politics of body positivity by centering the bodies of Black women in our discussions about food, weight, health and wellness.

“Bloomington is known in the science world--if you say Bloomington, people think fruit flies.” This week on our show, we tap into the Earth Eats archive, for one of my very favorite stories. It’s about our visit to the kitchen of a science building on the campus of Indiana University, where they prepare food for a tiny organism that supports genetic research around the globe. This one is from 2020, so you’ll hear some mention of the global pandemic. This is a strange one–but fascinating.

“I think our approach is: making it better–improving the land every time we have a chance. We are benefited by the sweetness of the maple, right? So, that’s a source of sweetness for us and for the people to come after us. And hopefully the pawpaws will be. One of these days, somebody can enjoy that fruit. Yeah.” This week on the show we explore what it can look like to have a vision for your land that extends beyond yourself and even your family. We speak with Larry Gillen and Helen Vasquez about their decision to gift their farm to a tribal college. And producer Josephine McRobbie visits with a Regenerative Farmer building soil in the sandhills of North Carolina with the help of some four-legged(and winged) “teammates.”

“Throughout industrial history, the idea behind weeds is very political and it's very constructed. They are only weeds because they get in the way of ideas of how you think that a well kept clean, pristine area would look or like you're trying to reach a certain idea of class.”This week on the third SUMMER episode of our Eats Wild series, we harvest and cook edible weeds (also known as Quelites or wild greens) with Anthropologist Keitlyn Alcantara, and we talk about Indigenous foodways and how to think differently about our relationships with plants.Plus, how to make simple floral syrups from linden and elder flowers.

“Studying food is a way to study how we are connected to the world of life around us. Whatever we think about humans being so cerebral, so intellectual–it really breaks down because we are a part of everything else around us.” This week on the show we talk with the author of The Book of Yerba Mate, Christina Folch about how one plant can tell us so much about ourselves, and the world around us. Christine Folch is the Bacca Foundation Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Environmental Sciences & Policy at Duke University.She spoke with Kayte Young about The Book of Yerba Mate: a stimulating history, released in 2024 with Princeton University Press. And, Earth Eats producer Leo Paes brought his Yerba Mate kit into the WFIU studios for a tasting session.

This week on the show we’re questioning the traditions and assumptions around the role of family in farming. “When something goes wrong in the family relationship, it can really affect the farm business, and when something goes wrong in the farm business, it can really affect the family relationship–which has big implications for things like food security–although we often don’t look at it that way.”My guest is sociologist Dr. Ike Leslie, of the University of New Hampshire. Join us for a conversation about Queering the Food System.

“Many of the farmers talked about the ability to be out in nature with other members of their family and other members of their community and several of them also talked about the benefits of being able to interact with people from other communities.” This week on the show, we talk with geographer Pablo Bose about innovative resettlement projects that help refugees connect with familiar foods from home, through gardening in community with others.

“You gotta take the phyllo dough, put it down on your station. One person takes the butter, garlic, lemon juice mixture, wipes it down. And then someone else spoons on the filling, and then they fold it. And then the butter person butters the outside, puts it in the baking tin. And then you gotta immediately start the next dough...”This week on the show, Kayte Young hands the mic to producer Daniella Richardson for one special episode. As host, Daniella talks with friends about the foundational foods that have shaped their lives and their perspectives on human connection.

“We have about a four acre parcel of land here that’s subdivided into a whole bunch of micro-plots, basically, where we can isolate, you know, the Black Strawberry Tomato, or the Chinese Wool Flower or a gourd or whatever it happens to be. And we can make sure that those seeds stay pure. Purity is one of the biggest things that we do here. We do a lot of purity trials, so we maintain that the seed we’re selling [to] somebody–we wanna make sure that that seed is 100% true to type.”This week on the show we visit Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company to learn the particulars of growing for plants for seed. And Violet Baron talks with the owners of Lost Farm Meal Service about growing a business during a pandemic.